TRANSCRIPT OF TAPED INTERVIEW
with
DR IAN PROCTER
Key: TK Tim KELLY
HN Hilary NESI
IP Dr Ian PROCTER
HN O.K. So what is a seminar? Can you describe one for me?
IP Well, a seminar is a small group of students, and a seminar tutor. By
small I mean between 10 - 15 students. In many parts of British
education, the word “seminar” is mis-used. I’ve heard of seminars of 40
students. You cannot have a small group discussion with 40 people in the
room. So the key thing is that this is a small enough group for people to
learn through discussion. Through talking to each other. Now, I see 3
ways in which people learn through discussion. The first of all - the first
thing is that clearly students can ask questions of their seminar tutor, and
get clarification from their tutor. More importantly, they can ask
questions of each other - talk to each other about things, and thus get the
perspective and knowledge of other students, which is kind of pooled in a
seminar situation.
But the third thing I think is the most important, it’s learning by
articulating what’s in your head. Very often we say something, and we
realise, “Gosh, that’s clearer now I’ve said it.” And the seminar gives the
opportunity for people to put what they’ve been reading about in their
books, or listening to in their lectures, to put their knowledge into their
own words. And that itself, I think, is a learning experience. A
clarifying, articulating experience.
1
TK Can I just stop this for a minute, because I’m getting a lot of background
noise from outside there. May I just shut the window?
IP Yes.
TK And then we’ll just carry on.
HN Do you want that bit done again?
TK No, no, we don’t need to do it again, because I can actually move a lot of -
you know - car rumble - in the editing process, but it’s - it’s not shut.
That’s better. But obviously, you know, if we can - it’s easier for me not
to have to remove it. Right, so forgive me.
HN That’s O.K.
IP O.K.
TK So please continue.
HN Do I have to do any - are you ready?
TK Yeah.
HN Good. Do I have to do any preparation before a seminar?
IP Oh yes, this is vital. A seminar must be an informed discussion. And the
practice in my department - the Department of Sociology here - is to
expect students to prepare for their 4 weekly seminars. By preparation,
the advice I give to students is that you should expect to spend about 2
hours per week, per seminar, reading in preparation for the seminar. On
all our modules, the materials we give out - course documentation, will
specify seminar reading, and will specify questions to think about whilst
you are reading and - well, the advice I give to students in “How to
prepare for a seminar” is first of all, remember what you are preparing for.
You’re preparing to enter into a discussion. It’s absolutely no use having a
great thick wad of materials that when you’re asked a question by your
tutor, you start delving around in these materials, and you’ve no idea
2
where the answer is! So, what you’ve got to do is to think, “What have I
learnt from what I’ve been reading? What’s been positive? What do I
want to tell other people about? What connections can I make between
what I’ve learnt here and what I’ve learnt in other modules, other
seminars within this module? What do I disagree with? What do I think
is a load of old rubbish? - and basically, I want to tell the students
‘Beware of this! There’s a methodological flaw in this argument.’” - or
whatever.
And finally, “What am I confused about?” And don’t just say, when
asked, “Well what does Bloggs have to say about X or Y?” - you say, “I
couldn’t understand it!” That’s no good. You’ve got to think about what
is it that’s causing you problems here? - So that I can bring it to a
seminar and either the tutor, or preferably other students can say, “Well,
we think it means this….”
So those are the kind of things in which - which a student should prepare.
It’s an informed discussion. You need to be able to enter a discussion and
you need to have plus points and negative points, and points of confusion.
- Ready to enter into a discussion.
HN So do students often disagree with each other in seminars?
IP Ideally, yes! (Laughs) Ideally, yes. So that one would flesh out the
nature of the disagreement. Is this just my experience, personal anecdote
kind of stuff? - Or is there a much deeper, more theoretical, or
methodological issue here. In a subject like Sociology, there are - there
are never ultimately right answers. There are - there are certainly
important facts and figures that we need to know and take account of.
3
But those facts and figures are themselves socially constructed. A
frequently used example are crime rates, for example - and who gets
picked up by the police? Who gets just a warning? Who gets processed
through the courts? Those figures themselves are very contested. And
that’s very much in the nature of much sociological debate. It’s not just
that there’s personal disagreement. We have to understand why the
social world is a contested world, with different people having different
understandings of what crime is, whether crime is a problem? How to
deal with crime. So, in a sense, disagreement is important to seminars
because it brings out the nature of what we’re talking about. Not just, as
I say, personal disagreements between students.
HN So it’s O.K. for me to say something which everyone else is completely
different from what the teacher’s said, and the other students have said?
IP Yeah. And the - I think an important point to make is, ask the obvious
questions - or ask the questions that you think everyone else knows the
answer to, but you’re the odd person out, and you’re a bit shy of doing it
and, in fact the reality is that everyone is thinking, “Er - what does he
mean? What does he mean by alienation?” - or something like this. So a
student should always be prepared to ask the question that seems - it
seems the obvious question, that you should know the answer to, but you
don’t.
HN M’m.
IP There shouldn’t be embarrassment. What we try to do is to set up seminar
groups that have expectations that students will attend every week - so
they get to know each other. So they have some confidence in each
other. And so that one can expect students to say, “No, I do disagree with
you.” They have that sense of trust amongst themselves. That’s why we
4
require attendance every week. That’s the requirement. It doesn’t work
100%, but the expectation is pretty clear in the department, and it works
reasonably well.
HN Is student performance assessed in any way?
IP We are in a transitional situation. (Laughs.) Up until now, we’ve - we
have a student progress system, whereby, on an annual basis we have a
meeting of all 1st, 2nd or 3rd year tutors, and we go through all the students
and look at their record cards, which have been filled in. And there is a
record of attendance, and participation in written work. But they are very
brief annotations. We don’t think this is really up to scratch.
The other issue is that developments - national, indeed - I suppose
international developments - require us to assess students’ transferable
skills. And so we’ve just this year decided to try to form - to give a
formal assessment of students’ time management, their preparation for
seminars; their participation in seminars; their use of library materials in
that preparation. Now the way this will happen is that this formal
assessment will not be part of the examination system. We’ve resisted the
possibility of somehow giving part of a final mark on the basis of an
assessment by a seminar tutor. The reason for this is that we are fully
committed to the idea of anonymous marking of examined work, and we
also employ a system whereby all examined work is independently
double-marked and then checked by an external. Now when it comes to
seminar - these transferable skills which are displayed in seminar, none of
this is practically feasible. So what we’re going to do next year, is to
introduce a more elaborate way of talking - of discussing students’
progress. At the end of each term, each seminar tutor, on each module
5
will complete a progress form for each student. That progress form,
amongst other things will include an assessment of students’ preparation,
participation, attendance and time management, and use of library
resources. And that will go on the student’s file. We will encourage
students to look at their reports and provide their own evaluation of the
report that has been given. So, that material will stay on the student’s file
and will be available as a transcript for the student and as a - raw material
for reference writing in later years. So that’s how we try to give a formal
aspect to this assessment of seminar skills - rather than build it into the
degree result. Next year will be our first year. If you want to come back
in another year (laughs) I’ll give you a report on how it’s gone. But
we’ve set it all up, we’re ready to roll. Sorry for that long answer!
HN Do students give presentations?
IP M’m.
HN - Sort of monologue presentations in - ?
IP Yeah.
HN - in seminars?
IP Well, the word “seminar” covers a number of different teaching and
learning possibilities. One is what I call “The Guided Discussion”. Here
the seminar tutor has an agenda of questions, which the tutor wishes to
work through, and try to draw students in to giving an answer to those
questions. A second form of the seminar is to use small groupwork -
where, for the first 20 minutes or something like that - the seminar of, say,
12 students splits into 4 groups of 3 - again with an agenda of questions.
They might have different questions for each group, or each tackling 3
questions - the same 3 questions. And then, after 20 minutes the tutor
brings the small groups together and the questions are compared - or the
6
answers are compared - between the small groups, to try to get to a
summary set of answers to these problems that we started with.
And of course, the third form of seminar is what you’ve referred to - is
where a student gives a paper, or some other form of presentation, to the
rest of the group, and the - this forms the starting point for a discussion.
Now I find that the presentation form of seminar is the most difficult to
manage. If it works well - it’s wonderful. I have a student who uses an
overhead, raises questions - “These are things we need to talk about” -
you know, that’s excellent. But the danger is that a student comes along
with an essay, and reads an essay, which sends everyone else to sleep, and
after quarter of an hour, at the end of the reading, the tutor then has to
start the seminar all over again in an ad hoc kind of way.
Now I - now as it happens I only teach in the first year, and I don’t use the
presentation format. I use a mix of guided - a guided discussion and small
groupwork. But, as students gain in maturity in the second and third
years, tutors do ask them to prepare papers. It’s usually in the second
term of a year long course. So small groups and what-not are used in the
first term, and then students are prepared to give presentations in the
second term.
HN What kind of advice would tutors give to people about to give
presentations?
IP Well - I think I can re-word what I’ve already said. Remember what you
are doing. You are trying to open up a discussion amongst other students.
You are not simply reading something - that is intended to be written
7
down and read by someone, and commented upon in that format. A
presentation is trying to present a set of issues for discussion, and thus, in
so far as you can use the overhead, or white board or whatever - all the
better. If you can have a hand-out which gives an agenda of what you’re
going to do, raises some points for discussion, some juicy quotes to talk
about - something like this. This is the sort of thing I would say.
I’d also want to say - and this is why we tend to use it in the second term.
The other people in the room are like yourself. They are other students.
They’re not examiners. They’re not Martians who are of a superior
intelligence! This is - they are people like you. They do this as well.
And I think the other thing is, do as best you can, but don’t aim for
perfection straightaway. This is a learning process. So that is the kind of
advice I would give.
HN I’m very shy and my English is poor. I want to express my ideas, but I
can’t find the right words always. Can you give any advice on what to
do?
IP Well, I don’t think this is a problem only for students working in a second
language. Getting the words right is also a problem for people using
English as a first language. Or people coming to do Sociology who have
not done A level Sociology, or something like - some of that avenue here.
So I think it’s very easy for an overseas student to think, “It’s my
language that’s the problem.” - rather than, “This is a common problem
that all students have, to try to get a question or an issue clear.” And it’s
best to make a start and let other people take up the cudgels. So you
might start off by saying, “Well, we’re having a seminar on Emile
Durkheim’s concept of animi.” And you know it’s something to do with
8
people’s concept of not knowing what the rules are. So you start off by
saying that. “I know it’s something to do with either the rules being
unclear, or ambiguous, or wrong. I know it’s something like that. Can
someone help me to say something a bit more specific?” So it’s to try to
draw other people in. And a key point here - a general point again - is talk
to other students. Don’t talk just to the tutor. This is a skill which
students should develop to try to deflect questions to themselves to other
students. So, if you’re asking me, “What does Durkheim mean by
animi?” I shouldn’t say, “Durkheim means X, Y and Z.” I should say,
“Well, Isobel - can you help? Can you start us off by talking about
animi?” “James, you say a bit more.” - and to draw people in rather than
just giving the answer.
HN A related question. What’s the mark of a really good student? How does
a student shine - in a seminar?
IP Well, I think preparation is a starting point. And I must admit, if a
student comes in, not even armed with a pen - never mind a bit of paper! -
that’s rather disappointing. But assuming that we’ve got students coming
along prepared, then I think - the key thing is not to shine in the simple
way of, “Sir! Sir! I’ve got the answer!” We’re not at school. We’re not
- We’re trying to involve other people in a discussion. So in so far as a
student is making a contribution, he should try to address what other
students have said, and try to draw other students in. Sometimes you get a
real pearl of a student, who actually starts taking the seminar over. Not in
the sense that they monopolise the time, but they are skilled in doing
precisely this - in recognising when other students are a bit nervous, or
unclear about something, and drawing them in and showing that (a) they
don’t have to be nervous, and (b) they know more than they can. So the
9
really good seminar student, in a sense is saying to the tutor, “We don’t
need you any more. We can manage on our own!” And we can - You
know, I can draw the students in and get us working together as a group.
Now that - I have certain mental images of students in recent years, who
have done that And those are the people who remain in my memory,
rather than those who come along, who seem to be very well prepared, but
just give rather stilted answers to my questions, that doesn’t take us any
further.
HN What’s the worst thing I can do in a seminar?
IP Sit silent - even when the tutor is trying to draw you in, and you - a
student simply says, “I don’t know” or “I haven’t covered that.” - or. -
Now, in so far as you’ve - you’ve come along to a students’ seminar, but
you - you haven’t done any preparation. Then, fair enough, you should be
quite clear about it and say, “I’m sorry. I really don’t know. I can give
you The Guardian’s view on this! - or indeed, The Daily Mirror’s view on
this! - but I’ve come along this morning. I’m a bit guilty, but I haven’t
done my preparation.” Fair enough. Come clean. Then the tutor’s not
wasting his/her time trying to draw material out. But, the worst thing is -
you’ve got - you’ve done the preparation; you’re a conscientious student,
but you don’t participate. And you’re not making the best of the
opportunity. It’s not just that you’ve saved your knowledge to yourself.
As I was saying earlier, when you, as a student articulate that knowledge,
you will be (a) surprised at what you know, and (b) You will be clearer
about what you know. So it’s important to participate. And - well, it’s
not a waste of time just to sit there silent, but you’re not making the best
of the opportunity.
HN That’s it! I think that’s great!
10
TW Have we covered everything?
HN Well, I think so, yes. That’s really helpful. Loads of points -
TW Loads of points there, yeah.
HN Yeah.
IP Good.
TW A few things that were a bit different from things that we’ve heard before.
So that’s pleasing.
……. Space…..
TK Yeah, O.K. I’m ready.
HN Have you any particular comments to make about the contributions of
international students, in seminars?
IP Well, the first point to make there is that there are many different kinds of
international students. At one extreme - both in terms of language, and in
terms of a typical student, you have American or Australian students,
whose first language is English, and who tend to be very confident, very
articulate, outward going people - in terms of the culture in which they
come from.
At the other extreme, you have students whose - perhaps working in their
3rd language, and a language, which is difficult for them - typically say
Japanese or Korean students, who might well have learnt English through
school, but in which in their own societies, English is not a commonly
used language. As against, for example, India or African countries,
where it is - it might be a second language, but it’s - it’s a language used
in their country and in their education system, for example.
11
So you have enormous variation in terms of language use; in terms of
cultural expectation. I should say a bit more about cultural expectation. I
mentioned American students, who talk very readily. There are students
coming from some educational systems, where the purpose of the teaching
situation is to listen and to write down what the teacher says. And clearly
those students have come to us for - to come to a different educational
tradition. But it does mean to say that one has to work rather differently
and rather harder to get people away from their former expectations of
what teaching is about, to one based - well, not based, - but one which
involves seminars. So when you say “international students” there is a
very wide contrast between a confident, American, middle-class girl; a
Korean student, who has been expected to sit and listen to the teacher; to
a rather sophisticated Parisian, or Italian students. You know! I don’t
want to put these into one box. But I think the common point here is that,
as with any other students - it doesn’t matter where they come from - one
has, as a seminar teacher, to try to adapt the teaching to the students.
That’s why small groups are important, so you can get to know the
students in your group, and try to know how to respond to each one. So I
don’t particularly see the fact that people are international or overseas, as
the issue. The key thing is to try to get to know your students, and how to
get them to participate in a seminar.
HN Because every individual is different?
IP Yeah, well, the whole point about seminar teaching, rather than the
lecture, or just using videos or something - is to give the student the
opportunity to actually meet with a member of academic staff, and have
the benefit of experience - that member of staff’s experience, in working
with students. You know - this is a mass education system now, but
12
certainly here, in this department at Warwick, I think Warwick more
generally, we are trying to maintain traditional forms of teaching, which
centre upon someone like me, an academic of 30 years standing, still
being interested in actually working with Undergraduate students. I enjoy
it! (Laughs) You know, I think that’s important.
HN O.K. That’s great.
TK Great!
13